I run a site that gets what I think is a good amount of traffic but I'm wondering how much income it should be producing. Last Month: 80,000 visits 40,000 unique visitors 720,000 pageviews 15 minutes average time on site I've been running Adsense for a while and it is doing around $7/day off that traffic. Is that too high or too low for the traffic? Should I be looking at other forms of monetization? Thanks
Well, I should say it is not enough. I have this client who receives only approx 100,000 pageviews per month. And we are making more than $7 on a good day. And the keywords are not the top ones. I estimate that your CTR is very low. Because if your CTR would be at least 3 you needed to be paid less than cent per click to make 7 bucks. I bet you're paid more than 1 cent per click, so yes, to my understanding, something is wrong. What type of site is it? Entertainment, reference, etc? Adsense is the best advertising option because it gives you a possibility to mix ads into the content (read: don't annoy your visitors) How are your ads placed? What colors do you use? What other advertising options do you consider?
Hi Mate, Im assuming you mean the album covers site? if so you should look at clickbank products to monetise it, you could be earning thousands per month with the right product placements, good luck! MOG
Hey Ross, MOG's comments do back up what I said on www. aussietycoon.com you should try and promote products through the site as well, obviously still offer your free covers, but I think there is a potential to be making a lot more through cleverly marketed products. I'm not a huge fan of chasing the adsense carrot, so I think affiliate or direct selling is one of the best and most measurable ways to make money online rather than placing ads everywhere.
Yes, I should have mentioned the site is www.CoverHunt.com Thousands per month sounds good... I made the site for personal use and told a few friends and then basically forgot about it for months. Almost a year later I got an email saying it was nearing the bandwidth limit so I need to upgrade the plan and I realised how much traffic it was getting. I added Adsense because I figured there should be a few dollars in there, I know it isn't ideal but it has very low barriers to entry. More recently I also added tiny (read: useless) amazon links which make about $30/mo. I thought it should probably make more than $7/day but had nobody to ask until I got referred here - so thanks for all your responses so far! I just signed up to clickbank and have been looking through, I think ipod or music/tv download related stuff is probably the most relevant to Coverhunt, any advice on which one I should choose?
I would try and utilise the amazon affiliate program better than you do already. It would be nice to see prices underneath the album cover for example not just the current "buy it here" sort of link. You could also try and do some cross-sell with ebay because many artists/bands will have many more products on there such as gig tickets, promo vinyl, posters etc...
Yes you need to mix and match you advertising.. Google is the low end of the stick, while affiliate marketing is the higher road, but takes some more work to get it rolling. I agree with everyone else that you need to setup a price tag with the buy now link, however I would be using buttons in the place of links. For example when I clicked on a album cover it would show the album, then probably provide info about that album/cover, as well as a price, and buy now button. You can scrape amazon for the pricing so you dont have to deal with keeping everything up to date. Also I would put in the place of just putting photo after photo all on one page for one artist, I would setup one large image like you have, then have a horizontal set of 3-6 images under it, so your page views will be higher, and give you more time and space for more ads. You should look at building some type of members service w/ email services, so that you can email them when new covers come out, etc. That will bring even more customers back, as well as allow you to plug them with more ads.
Dont sell PR passing links, your just asking for trouble if your really looking to make something of your online biz.
For those kinds of stats, and the ads that you have up now, figure on around 1% of your 40,000 visitors click on the ads. If that. That is average. I'm afraid not that many click on ads. Do the math. Yes, put in more ads! Why wouldn't you? If less than .5% of your visitors are clicking on a particular ad, pull it for a different one. Good luck with it.
Drop Adsense entirely and focus on generating sales. You can always add Adsense back into the mix after you experiment. Currently you try to get traffic to purchase each album. Make that more prominent. Perhaps on the left side of each album cover you have a simple "Purchase This Album" button with the details of the album/artist below it. Look for other affiliate offers that would work well with your userbase. Try one of ITunes promos where they offer a user discounted ITunes credits.